Upward Spiralhttp://www.kshipra.info
kshipra's online repository & thoughtsThu, 02 Feb 2017 04:26:51 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.522613522Prison break from DSLR to iPadhttp://www.kshipra.info/2017/02/prison-break-from-dslr-to-ipad/
http://www.kshipra.info/2017/02/prison-break-from-dslr-to-ipad/#respondThu, 02 Feb 2017 04:22:01 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/2017/02/prison-break-from-dslr-to-ipad/Well, I was looking for connectivity to directly transfer photographs taken on the DSLR to the iPad.
Found the perfect device for it on a popular online e-com portal app, didn’t expect the second tag line in the picture though. It definitely is a literal translation of “you-know-what-I- am-talking-about-but-I-am-not-going-to-mention” method of accessing a device.

And I am searching on Google on how to worship goddess Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge. Get the irony?

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/happy-vasant-panchami/feed/0615Is user frustration free on freecharge?http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/is-user-frustration-free-on-freecharge/
http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/is-user-frustration-free-on-freecharge/#respondTue, 31 Jan 2017 11:54:43 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/?p=605Well, it all began when we decided to pay our electricity bill on freecharge.in

It is pretty simple isn’t it? It just took like 2 steps : 1. Signing up and 2. Adding the account number (given by the local electricity board) and freecharge.in did everything else!

I was user-euphoric over the onboard experience. I could pay my bill easily and and would get reminders too! Now that is what I call smart!!

Well, that was a bit short-lived excitement for the very next month

I logged in (haven’t installed the app yet) and then tried to pay the next month bill, it still showed the previous bill amount and previous last date. Unable to pay the bill, I emailed the customer care guys. I got a quick response :

We are sincerely apologize for the inconvenienced caused to you, we would like to inform you that if you are utility bill payment due date is less then 4 days then you will be unable pay your bill. We would like to inform you that you utility bill payment due date should be more than 4 days then only you will be able to pay your respective utility bill payment.

Hope this information will be helpful to you.

Now, I was confused with this…. so I replied back that I was receiving the error of the old bill that is the previous month’s bill and not the current bill information with updated amount and due date. And their response was:

Thank you for writing in!
We understand that you have trouble.

Regret for the inconvenience caused. In order for us to address your concern as quickly as possible, kindly send us a screenshot of the error message.

Awaiting for your response! We appreciate your co-operation!

So then I email the attachments containing the screenshots of errors from the browser and the same error from their app.

While I waited for their response which took couple of days, I kept refreshing optimistically their app and their website pages to really really pay my bill and still got an error. The following was their response to the screenshots:

Thank you for writing to us!

We would like to inform you that the error you are getting is due to technical error kindly send us the latest bill copy so that we can assist you better.

We appreciate your patience.

So here I again scan the electricity bill through the Scannable app and mail it across to them. By then I have just 48 hours left to pay my bill and can you guess what the response was? Here it is:

Thank you for your Email!

We are glad to inform you that you can pay your Electricity Bills,but we kindly request you to pay your bill through Freecharge 4 days before the due date.Since it takes 72 hours to get it updated.

We also inform you that there is no limitations for electricity bill payments.

Hope this information was helpful.

Hehehe….

Nevertheless, I paid the electricity bill offline directly to the electricity board bill payment collection department but didn’t really give up on Freecharge entirely as I really liked their Onboarding experience.

Deciding to take a second chance I went back the next month to pay my bill through freecharge and have been continually been doing so far successfully and effortlessly.

The End.

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/is-user-frustration-free-on-freecharge/feed/0605Underwear and tear dreams of zivamehttp://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/underwear-and-tear-dreams-of-zivame/
http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/underwear-and-tear-dreams-of-zivame/#respondMon, 30 Jan 2017 08:53:27 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/?p=602After I had my newborn a while back, I really wasn’t too keen on going out too much even for essentials such a new fresh underwear. Momnesia takes a toll on you and you really want to just take one day & moment at a time. So I decided I will try on the deal with these new online stores and boy was I initially happy. After taking help to measure myself and post-it my new measurements, I started hunting for comfortable underwear including nursing bras. Found them, got them shipped and voila it is delivered in no time and I wondered wow, why do people even shop offline now?

A week after I used the goods, boy I was very disappointed. Now I can’t return any of them since I used them. I wrote a very angry email to the customer support team who responded that they were very sorry and added a bit of their currency points to the account so that I could those points to buy more. I just felt even more disappointed with that attitude.

Anyway I didn’t get back to their site nor their competitors, I decided that I would do offline for now.

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/underwear-and-tear-dreams-of-zivame/feed/0602Demonetization blues, reds, purples and the whole range of the rainbowhttp://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/demonetization-blues-reds-purples-and-the-whole-range-of-the-rainbow/
http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/demonetization-blues-reds-purples-and-the-whole-range-of-the-rainbow/#respondMon, 30 Jan 2017 08:36:15 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/?p=599This post is a bit late but I wanted to jolt down my thoughts about the 2016’s big jolt demonization tsunami.

Well, for starters I used to keep some money for emergency @ home and that was mostly a few 500 notes so there they into the savings bank account again.

So the papers report all the struggle the “common man” is suffering due to the long queues @ ATM and banks, and we too had a bit of squeezing to do with keeping the change, trying to pay by credit card and mobile wallets wherever we could and we peacefully succeeded. The “popular” mobile wallet company’s next forthcoming days were paradise , small vendors I.e. Tea stalls, pain-puri stalls and even the auto-rickshaws accepted digital payments.

I was already paying most of my Utilities through the “other” online wallet (ahem : freecharge.in) so demonetization didn’t really that too.

And loo!! One Sunday morning they newspaper guy turns up on our doorstep (yes, we are kind of backward that way) to collect a year’s worth of bill. And he was obligingly & willingly accepting cheques.

The milkman was willing to forgo payment and accept whatever cash we had.

Personally we were a bit cash strapped initially but we were willing to go through with it because others too were supportive. We totally support the cashless economy dream.

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/demonetization-blues-reds-purples-and-the-whole-range-of-the-rainbow/feed/0599Migration to iOShttp://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/migration-to-ios/
http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/migration-to-ios/#respondMon, 30 Jan 2017 04:56:04 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/migration-to-ios/Well, after being on Android for almost a decade, that is from the “Donut” version to “Lollipop” I decided to call it quits and move on.

And Ta da, after getting on to the iPhone 5C ( I know that is the older model, but that is all I could afford) I haven’t complained so far but my activities have been minimal. I haven’t download Facebook on it nor any other “popular” chatting application. I love iMessage so far so uncluttered and simple and not too many people on the platform. I have installed Instagram either on the phone as my time on the app has become very limited due to the Instagram app & I going in different directions…it decided to go the story way, added lot of advertisements and added much more clutter that I am not a fan of.

I used to be a power user of Foursquare one upon a time, and I loved that app and the badges it gave me but again we had to part ways.

It is not uncommon for these occurances to happen among us common people. We love apps then App and us survive in a relationship till we reach a saturation point, some of them we can’t live without and after a while we need a break from them.

Oh well, where was i? Oh yes, migration to iOS …. well I am taking it one day @ time. So far in the 3-4 months I have just 8 contacts on my phone (didn’t migrate the numbers from my google account) and just communicating on iMessage for texting. It has been peaceful. Maybe it wasn’t the platform , I just need to declutter the apps and their usage I guess. Even though i feel far more secure on the iOS than being on Android, that is just my opinion.

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2017/01/migration-to-ios/feed/0597Who is going to assemble the Shoe Rack purchased from pepperfry.com ?http://www.kshipra.info/2015/02/who-is-going-to-assemble-the-shoe-rack-purchased-from-pepperfry-com/
http://www.kshipra.info/2015/02/who-is-going-to-assemble-the-shoe-rack-purchased-from-pepperfry-com/#respondWed, 25 Feb 2015 10:58:29 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/?p=585We have been furniture shopping since about couple of years, yes that is how long it took to set up our “shangri-la”, after all… we all retire to these spaces after a hard day @ work.

So the last missing piece was the glorified “shoe rack” which we really “must have” because people entering our abode just would look at our footwear collection and make remarks about the amount of pairs of shoes we possess

So, we bought one from pepperfry.com on a Sale and waited for about for it. It was delivered along just fine. Next we waited for the carpenter to arrive or contact us to assemble the piece but we didn’t hear from anyone for about a week so we went about assembling it ourselves. It turned out to be more tedious and strenuous with the numerous parts , nuts and bolts. Plus the one page “manual” to help put it together was completely inaccurate.

nevertheless that was the last and only piece of furniture bought from pepperfry.com but we’ve heard better stories about the carpenters and better customer care about them after our incident. It’s good to know they have improved their service

As usual there would be lot of junk/spam/newsletters. For example, i would have mentioned a website/service for my father to check it out. He always manages to sign up for the newsletter unintentionally/intentionally adding more clutter to the inbox.

The primary/promotion/social tabs don’t fool anyone. My parents have no idea about that! That makes sense only to the Power users. Why did it ever get enabled for my parents?

My father’s primary task on email right now is to find the right “mate” for our male golden retriever and a bride for his son, my brother [What a situation!!! no bias here though we love our dog more :-P]

So, there is “hell” of Spam in his inbox from “e-com” websites regarding pets for “sale” [well, that is the reality ] and lots of profile matches for my brother’s matrimonial profile on various matrimonial websites. How would you solve this? In a country where “arranged” marriages are a norm even in urban areas, my father has taken to technology to solve this situation. It is not just my parents but other urban families too have jumped on the online matrimonial bandwagon.

In fact, few of my friends & relatives were hitched this way. It is no longer “uncool”, it has become a necessity as many of them have no time to date/ are too shy/ or considered dating taboo! [we’re 3rd world duh!]

Coming back to the problem of electronic mail which still seems complex to my parents : “spam” still being an eternal problem, yet they manage to keep it all [zero!] read. I hope these systems become more intelligent and more empathetic towards the older generation.

Talking about mailers, i noticed that my father took those very personally and he actually replied to them! So now, there is more “mailer daemon” error code emails & frankly my parents till have no idea what “mailer daemon” stands for or what it does. Come on!! we really need to change that, how about “Return to Sender” instead? of all the metaphors used, how come this was neglected? huh?

No matter what fancy technology email has evolved with, there is still some level of frustration with new features & etiquette of the whole email system because they are not designed with normal human users in mind.

There is NO excuse for BAD design.

]]>http://www.kshipra.info/2013/08/my-fathers-email-inbox-dilemma/feed/0573Social Gap of Generation Networks!http://www.kshipra.info/2013/07/social-gap-of-generation-networks/
http://www.kshipra.info/2013/07/social-gap-of-generation-networks/#respondFri, 26 Jul 2013 15:53:01 +0000http://www.kshipra.info/?p=571After taking family pictures for my brother’s birthday dinner outing on my mobile, my father mentioned that i should upload the pictures to a popular social networking site. I proudly informed him that i had de-activated my account there and told them to get on a closed group social network app instead [yes, we all own smart phones & a couple of tablets, 3rd world huh?]
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